Myriel became a priest of ineffable goodness. His appointment as bishop by Napoleon was a blessing to his diocese. He turned over his vast and sumptuous palace to the sick and converted the hospital into his own Spartan residence. The only luxury that he has retained from a more comfortable past are a few silver pieces: six knives and forks, a soup ladle, and two candlesticks. Not only the resources of the church but most of his own are used for the benefit of the indigent.
Out of a salary of 15, francs, 14, are earmarked for charity. For the sake of the poor, the bishop willingly hazards his reputation. He requests funds for the maintenance of a carriage, risking criticism for this extravagance, in order to give the money to orphans and foundlings.
His sacrifice does not prevent him from visiting his flock on foot, by donkey, or by some other modest means of transportation. Tirelessly he ministers to the sick, consoles the dying, and preaches the moral life. He does not demand the impossible and never condemns hastily. His front door is always unlocked, a perpetual invitation for those in need.
Only a few events interrupt his saintly daily routine. On one occasion, he consoles a convict during his last night on earth and attends his execution. The experience leaves him with a lingering impression of horror and doubts about the social order.
The bishop's pastoral duties involve him in another experience that illustrates his unflinching zeal. Eager to visit an isolated parish village, he ventures alone into the mountains where the bandit Cravatte has his hideout.
At the village, he wants to sing a Te Deum but finds the parish too poor to provide the necessary episcopal ornaments for the service. Help comes from an unexpected source: the thief Cravatte sends him a trunk filled with the treasures he has stolen from another church, Notre Dame of Embrun. He volunteers to execute Javert, but then lets him go instead, much to Javert's bewilderment.
Valjean returns just as the army is overwhelming the barricade. He seizes a gravely injured Marius and disappears down the sewers. Javert is waiting for Valjean at the exit, but rather than arresting him, he shows Valjean mercy and allows him to bring the wounded Marius to safety Marius never learns the identity of the man who saved him. Disgusted and horrified at his lapse of duty, Javert commits suicide.
Marius recovers from his wounds and, with the blessing of Gillenormand and Valjean, marries Cosette. Valjean has confessed his criminal past to Marius, who is horrified that the man is a criminal. Marius and Cosette grow closer as Valjean and Cosette grow farther apart.
Valjean's life loses its meaning without Cosette, and his health fades. Marius and Cosette arrive in time to comfort Valjean on his deathbed and the old man dies in peace, with the satisfaction of a life well and righteously lived. The Question and Answer section for Les Miserables is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
What is the authors purpose in writing the story? To persuade Hugo's purpose for writing, Les Miserables , was to inform Who gave Marius the new address of Cosette and Jean Valjean? Support your answer with textual evidence.
Valjean repays his host's hospitality by stealing his silverware. One day he saves a sailor about to fall from the rigging. He plunges into the sea and manages to escape by establishing the belief that he has drowned. In Paris, he lives like a recluse in a dilapidated tenement, the Gorbeau House, in an outlying district. In spite of his precautions, however, Javert manages to track him down.
Valjean is forced to flee abruptly. After a hectic chase and imminent capture, he finds a miraculous refuge in a convent. With the cooperation of the gardener, Fauchelevent, a man whose life he has saved in the past, Valjean persuades the prioress to take him on as assistant gardener and to enroll Cosette as a pupil.
Valjean and Cosette spend several happy years in the isolation of the convent. Hugo now turns to another leading character, Marius. Marius is a seventeen-year-old who lives with his grandfather, M. Gillenormand, a relic of the Old Regime. In a nearby town, Georges Pontmercy, Marius' father, a hero of the Napoleonic wars, lives in retirement.
Gillenormand, by threatening to disinherit Marius, has forced Georges Pontmercy to relinquish custody of his son. He has completed the estrangement by communicating his aversion for Pontmercy to Marius. Consequently, the young man reacts almost impassively to his father's death. A fortuitous conversation reveals to Marius the depths of his father's love for him, and indignant at his grandfather's deception, he leaves home. He takes refuge in the Latin Quarter and falls in with a group of radical students, the Friends of the A.
Marius, who under his father's posthumous influence has just switched his allegiance from the monarchy to Napoleon, falls into a state of intellectual bewilderment.
Material difficulties increase his unhappiness. Finally he manages to create a tolerable existence by finding a modest job, living frugally, and withdrawing into his inner dreams. His peace is shattered when he falls passionately in love with a beautiful young girl in the Luxembourg Gardens.
She is Jean Valjean's ward, Cosette. Too timid for bold actions, he courts her silently. A fatal indiscretion ruins his nascent love affair. He quizzes the doorman where the girl lives and a week later she moves without leaving an address. For a long time Marius is unable to find a clue to his sweetheart's whereabouts and is overcome by despair.
Coincidence puts him back on the track. One day curiosity impels him to observe his neighbors through a hole in the wall. He glimpses a family — father, mother, and two daughters — living in unspeakable squalor. Soon after he witnesses the entrance of a philanthropist, M.
Leblanc, and his daughter. To his immense surprise, the daughter is Cosette. His jubilation is replaced by consternation when he discovers that his neighbors are planning to draw M.
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